Meet Seán Harte, the artist who’s painted every Roy Keane red card

Roy Keane is having a bit of a moment. Not only has his dramatic exit from the 2002 World Cup been dramatised in the upcoming Steve Coogan-starring blockbuster, Saipan, he’s also the star at the heart of an upcoming exhibition at Hen’s Teeth in Dublin: Sent Off. It’s the first solo show from Seán Harte, an artist who’s spent hours upon hours drawing one very specific thing – every single one of Keane’s red cards. ‘Why?’, you might ask. Well, as Seán tells It’s Nice That, the answer is pretty simple: “I just thought it would be funny to paint Roy Keane standing on Gareth Southgate.”

Jesting aside, the project is one that’s close to the artist’s heart. As a kid, Keane was Seán’s favourite player and if he wasn’t watching football, you could be sure to find him drawing it instead – the two passions, for him, are irrevocably intertwined. “The older I get, the more nostalgic I get,” Seán adds. “Painting football lets me revisit memories, like running around my living room as a nine-year-old when Manchester United won the Champions League in 1999.”

It was after hearing the footballer turned commentator talking about his red cards on the Stick to Football podcast (on which he resolutely asserts the number of cards to be six, only to be informed it’s actually 12) that Seán was driven to paint that iconic Southgate stomp, purely as means of amusing himself. “He spoke about them so matter-of-factly, with his trademark dry humour, that what had felt so serious at the time became funny in hindsight,” says Seán. “I thought my artwork could do the same by turning those incidents into something fun and playful.” Before the artist knew it, a few more drawings of the red card incidents in, things had gotten out of hand, and he had a lot of fervent requests for him to immortalise Keane’s (arguably most controversial) tackle on Alfie Haaland (Erling Haaland’s dad). “I definitely felt a bit of pressure to deliver,” Seán says.

Obviously Seán couldn’t build a time machine and watch each of the Keane fouls as they happened (a man can dream), so it involved a lot of him mining clips for inspiration, watching back the incident and the moments that built up to it while capturing reference images. But, Seán admits that his process “is probably 80 per cent self-doubt and 20 per cent art”, so he can often spend a lot more time musing on a piece before he actually gets started. That is, before it’s time for colour. “Once I pick up the oil pastels, everything changes,” Seán says. “At that point I give myself over to the process and whatever happens, happens. I don’t plan too much because it never turns out the way I imagined anyway, so I just enjoy the process and make decisions in the moment.” The precisely smudged oil strokes of Seán’s pieces give each one a brilliant sense of motion and sporting savagery. If it weren’t for the football strips, crowds and bright green grass, the works could easily be stills from an action flick, freezing Keane mid slap, punch, stomp and dramatic exit from the pitch, as if nonchalantly escaping an explosion.

Now, Seán can officially be summarised as, in his own words, “a 36-year-old man colouring footballers!”. And, to be honest, he couldn’t be happier about it, and for all the people who now have the chance to see his works in person at Hen’s Teeth in September. “Football already means so much to people, so maybe it can be a gateway into art for football fans who might not normally visit an art exhibition,” ends the artist. “I’d love to see more football and art crossing over in Ireland, and if this helps in some small way, that would be brilliant.”

Sent Off will open at Hen’s Teeth, Dublin on 3 September 2026.